Thursday, February 19, 2015

#TBT near and far



In reverse chronological order, here's a smorgasbord of Jake Gyllenhaal photos recently posted or discovered.



I tried to talk Jake into keeping that Tatt! Nah!


Tyrese: Jake Gyllenhaal this dude poked me in my neck - I guess I was too intense that day....




TBT this THIS moment.....oh how I love Jake Gyllenhaal.....he was so sweet!
#jakegyllenhaal #celebrity #yyc #brokebackmountain #calgarystampede #fairmontpalliser #thatmoment #yeg 3w



My 22nd #bday at #moomba w #jakegyllenhaal wearing #vintage #hayleystarr bahaha #tbt #13years ago #tmrw #wowza

#TBT videos, this one promoting Jarhead:



Jake leaving a U2 concert in 2005:

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Cast of characters: Lou Howard Adam Anthony Billy Rob Loki



2015 is going to be a busy Jake year. He's drawing raves on Broadway for Constellations. And cinematically, things heat up as the long-awaited Nailed (retitled Accidental Love) hits VOD. The movie was shot seven years ago but feels even older than that. You can review the history here. I'm happy we finally get to see it, but it's a curiosity at best. Not too many reviews yet. One from Film Stage and a more positive spin from AV Club:

If there’s any good news here, it’s that, despite rumors to the contrary, Accidental Love is very much a coherent movie. It’s not incomplete; it’s just been sloppily completed—cobbled together, in other words, by filmmakers (or distribution cronies) looking to salvage a releasable product out of footage crying out to be reshot or reworked. Yet traces of Russell’s spirit, a humane screwball exuberance, poke through the compromised results. It’s there in the way the movie keeps stuffing a bunch of yammering eccentrics in a room together, and also in the bug-eyed performance the director coaxes out of Jake Gyllenhaal, whose character—a flip-flopping, libidinous politician—could have fit neatly into American Hustle. Russell fans owe it to themselves to see this disowned disaster, painful as that act of completism will be.



For a darker movie and brighter film, check out Nightcrawler, out on DVD this week in the U.S. The Boston Globe has a nice review of the movie and Jake:

It’s a rare actor who can shift from appealing to unsettling and back again as smoothly as Jake Gyllenhaal. He’s certainly creepy in “Nightcrawler” (2014), as Lou Bloom, an oddball newbie videographer trolling LA for blood-spattered footage that he can shop to the local TV news. In a lone quick featurette, writer-turned-director Dan Gilroy (“The Bourne Legacy”) explains that the character is modeled in part on noted 1940s New York crime shutterbug Weegee. But we half-wonder if Gyllenhaal and Gilroy might also have been thinking of Budd Schulberg’s inside-showbiz novel, “What Makes Sammy Run?” Between Lou’s slimy careerism and the dark LA setting, it feels a bit like we’re watching a socially challenged version of archetypal aspiring weasel Sammy Glick. It’s also tightly coiled strangeness on a par with what we’ve seen Gyllenhaal deliver in his “Donnie Darko” breakout and, just recently, in the doppelganger freakout “Enemy” and as a haunted detective in “Prisoners.” He’s so adept at this sort of thing, you’d think it might put him in the Anthony Perkins category, pigeonholed with cause. But try putting together a videofest of Gyllenhaal’s weirdest work and some of his better mainstream-charismatic stuff — plus “Brokeback Mountain,” of course — and see if you don’t wind up disoriented. He’s well cast in the smart, underrated time-travel thriller “Source Code.” He’s all down-home likability as a teen science enthusiast in the early-career effort “October Sky.” And he even lends some feeling to the popcorn devastation of “The Day After Tomorrow.” Not bad for a nightcrawler.



Indiewire reflects on Jake's 9 Best Performances, including Enemy:

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There's also news of Jake's other 2015 releases. First up, a still from Southpaw:



That looks uncomfortable!



There hasn't been much news on Everest but I found this on IMDb:

Jason Clarke is the lead, Jake & Josh are supporting. All are excellent.

It is an ensemble film, but Jason as Rob seems to have more screen time focused on him than the others. Should be a hit, possible Oscar contender, especially in technical categories - cinematography, sound, editing. I saw a screening recently and really enjoyed it. The runtime was just over 2 hours, on this site it says 2 1/2, maybe that was a different cut. ...

Do most of the supporting cast get a decent amount of screen time? Is this one of the most realistic movies based on mountain climbing to hit the big screen?

Yes, the main characters all get ample screen time, but like I said, the focus seems to be on Rob Hall as the expedition leader. Emily Watson really shines as the operations manager at base camp. Robin Wright and Keira Knightly only have a few scenes but make an impact. Haven't seen too many mountain climbing movies (Eiger Sanction comes to mind), and I know this wasn't actually filmed on Everest (there were a few unfinished SFX shots which made me realize this fact), but it looked real to me.

Everest is a movie for all audiences and should do pretty well on its own with good reviews and word of mouth, it's an excellent film. They would be wise to possibly hold the release until later in the year for academy award marketing.

You wont be disappointed. I knew very little about the actual events before the screening and was completely enthralled, have since done some research and the movie gets a lot right, and yes, is very respectful and honest.


Going back to Loki: I don't remember seeing this. I think it's the London Apple Store panel for Prisoners: